Hope Now
Regular price
€28.50
In March of 1980, Le Nouvel Observateur published the final interviews between the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, then blind and debilitated, and his young assistant, Benny Levy. Readers immediately denounced the interviews as distorted and fraudulent for portraying a Sartre who had abandoned his leftist convictions, rejected his most intimate friends, and cast aside his fundamental beliefs in favor of a messianic Judaism. Sartre's supporters argued that it was his orthodox interlocutor, Levy, who had twisted the words of the ailing philosopher. Yet, shortly before his death, Sartre confirmed the authenticity of the interviews and their puzzling content. Here, presented in translation, the interviews are framed by two provocative essays by Benny Levy, accompanied by a comprehensive introduction from noted Sartre authority Ronald Aronson, which places the interviews in biographical and philosophical perspective to demonstrate how they confirm and contribute to Sartre's overall philosophy. This absorbing volume at last contextualizes and elucidates the final thoughts of a brilliant and influential mind.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1906 - 80) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, published in translation by the University of Chicago Press. Benny Levy (1945 - 2003) was a leader in the 1968 student uprising in France and served as Sartre's assistant from 1974 to 1980. Adrian van den Hoven is president of the North American Sartre Society.